Key performance indicators (also referred to herein as “KPIs” or “indicators”) help organizations define and measure progress toward organizational goals. In particular, KPIs are quantifiable measurements that reflect progress toward an agreed-upon numerical goal. KPIs can differ significantly based upon the organization. For instance, a business may have as one of its KPIs the percentage of income that comes from repeat customers. A customer service department within the business may have as one of its KPIs the percentage of customer telephone calls that are answered within the first minute. Other types of organizations, and groups within those organizations, may define and utilize other types of KPIs.
In order to make KPIs accessible to executives and other employees of an organization, software components are typically constructed that extract the required data from complex databases, evaluate the KPI, and present the results in the form of a balanced scorecard that shows the values of one or more KPIs. Creation of these types of complex software components requires programming skills beyond those of the average computer user. Therefore, it is typically necessary to utilize the services of a professional programmer, which can be very expensive. Moreover, data that is created in applications utilized by many computer users has not been previously available for use in KPIs. For instance, although millions of users utilize spreadsheet application programs for a wide range of financial and business purposes, the data created and stored in spreadsheets has been previously unavailable for use within KPIs.
It is with respect to these considerations and others that the various embodiments of the present invention have been made.